What defines a good weapon? Any weapon which serves the function required by its user is a good one. Here is an small guide as to how to choose the correct weapon for your characters...

Introduction

Before you start, ask yourself the following questions:

	What form of attack are you going to use? As in, are you primarily using physical attacks or spells to kill the enemies?
	Is your character damage significantly large compared to the damage provided by the weapon you used?
	Are you hitting the enemies with decent frequency?
	Does any of your statistics require any boosting; eg dexterity so as to attain better/perfect blocking?
	Are you having any problems killing monsters because they are able to get out of stunlock?

Having answered these questions, you are now ready to proceed with the guide...

Melee Weapons

Prefixes

To-Hit Modifiers    [from "bronze"(1-5%) to "strange"(101-150%)] Hitting the enemy is a very important part of meleeing. It is absolutely NO use if you cannot hit the enemy with decent frequency. Thus, the to-hit adders will help if hitting enemies are your problems. For rogues, in general, due to the inherently high to-hit (consequence of high dexterity), such to-hit adders can be neglected except in perhaps hell/hell. Even then, with good support equipment, such to-hit adders are also not needed. For bards, to-hit adders are generally needed only on one weapon, use the other weapon as a heavy source of damage. A weapon adding sufficient to-hit can usually be found even at lower levels. At higher levels, unless you are duelling or is really VERY short on to-hit, "weird" and "strange" will give you excessive to-hit, so to-hit with damage modifiers would be better since they add damage as well.

Damage Modifiers   [from "jagged"(20-35%) to "merciless"(151-175%)] In general, damage modifiers helps to increase the rate of killing the enemies.   The faster you kill the enemy, the less chances the enemies will have to kill you. At lower levels, when the damage bonus due to character stats is still rather low, the damage modifiers can add significant amounts of damage to your damage, especially if it is a 'heavy' weapon (i.e. bastard sword).  The damage added will help greatly to enable you to reach the damage level needed to stun the enemies. Essentially, warriors and barbarians have little use for this type of modifiers since they do not provide to-hit bonuses and the damage levels of warriors and barbarians are already very high.

	To-Hit and Damage Modifiers   [from "sharp"(1-5%, 20-35%) to "king's"(76-100%, 151-175%)] To-hit modifiers and damage modifiers all have their use; but if you have both of them on the same weapon, it would be a great weapon to have.  This is the class of weapons most characters should be looking for.
	Resistance Modifiers    [varies depending on whether it is resist all or resist fire/lightning/magic] These are almost strictly non-melee weapons.  Characters who uses these weapons are generally those that uses magic to kill enemies and uses the weapon slot as a means to free up a slot on jewels for +mana items.

Suffixes

Damage Modifiers    [from "quality"(+1-2) to "slaughter"(+16-20)] In general, unless your character damage is really low and you badly need that extra bit of damage to enable stun or stunlock, this suffix is pretty much useless.  Thus, a suffix mainly good for mages (think muscles).

	Stats Modifiers    [varies depending on the stats they improve] Dexterity modifiers are useful for warriors/barbarians or other classes which needs the extra dexterity to improve to-hit and reach optimum blocking level. Magic modifiers are useful for characters who uses magic frequently or relies on manashield as a form of defence.  Warriors who plays 'turtle-mage' style may also needs this modifier to help them increase magical to-hit. Strength modifiers are useful only for wearing heavy armour and increasing damage.   A suffix that is almost totally useless for rogues since +all does so much more; a muscle mage will enjoy this though. Vitality modifiers are USELESS.  To have a vitality modifier on a weapon is a total waste of resources.  Even a +1 magic weapon is better than this unless you are really that desperate for hitpoints. Modifiers which adds to all stats is very useful all round since it provides to-hit, dexterity, damage, mana, magic and hitpoints.  Rogues/Bards love this even more since they get damage bonus from both dexterity and strength.
	Hasted Effect   [from "readiness"(quick) to "haste"(fastest)] Increases the swing rate of a weapon and thereby increase the damage done to the enemies per unit time. Speed/Haste weapons are particularly useful for warriors since they are able to stunlock advocates ONLY using a speed or haste sword/club. Characters which deals huge amounts of damage, such as the bard and the barbarian benefits much from this effect as well since the damage done per unit time increases by significant amounts.
	Life/Mana Stealing    [from "of the leech/bat"(3% steal) to "of blood/vampires"(5% steal)] Though usually only useful for characters which can deal large amounts of damage per blow, these weapons can be great fun and does a lot to improve potion economy.

Note: Durability modifiers, elemental damage effects, armour-penetrating effects and light radius modifiers are intentionally left out due to their very restricted usage.

Unique Weapons

	Bloodslayer    [broad axe, -5 all, +100% dmg, +200% dmg vs demons, -1 spell level] strictly Barbarians only since it is an axe (thus slow) and leaves no hands for shields.
	Messerschmidt's Reaver   [great axe, +5 all, -50 life, +15 dmg, +200% dmg, 2-12 fire dmg] fantastic damage but restricts the use of shields; even barbarians can find better non-unique axes.
	* Civerb's Cudgel    [mace, -2 mag, -5 dex, +200% dmg vs demons] strongest melee weapon you can have at higher levels; despite its -dex and -magic, the triple damage vs demons are very welcome by all classes (except perhaps monks).
	* Dreamflange   [mace, +30 mag, +50 mana, +50% resist magic, +1 spell level, +10% light] easily the best 'mage-type' weapon to have (AA staves and dreamflange debate goes on...).

	Gnarled Root   [club / spiked club, ac -10, +5 mag, +10 dex, +20% to-hit,+10 resist all, +300% dmg] good for low-level bards with a good-base alternate weapon.  useless otherwise.
	Falcon's Talon   [scimitar, +10 dex, +20% to-hit, -33% dng, fastest attack] the haste effect here is the only reason for it entering the list.  the +10 dex can help a bit with blocking.
	The Grandfather   [great sword, +5 all, +20 life, +20% to-hit, +70% dmg, one-handed] the highest damage unique sword around with some nice +all effect.
	Wizardspike   [dagger, +15 magic, +35 mana, +25% to-hit, +15% resist all] basically a poor man's dreamflange, better weapons are certainly available.

Only the uniques i feel are worth mentioning are mentioned.  Weapons like Doombringer, Gibbous Moon and Shadowhawk are pretty good -light radius weapons and can be rather sought after by certain players or variants as well.

Ranged Weapons

Prefixes

	To-Hit Modifiers    [from "bronze"(1-5%) to "strange"(101-150%)] Basically, similar argument for melee weapons, but since rogues are usually the only class to use bows regularly and rogues already have incredible to-hit with bows, this set of prefixes is not all that useful.  For other classes though, this may get important.
	Damage Modifiers    [from "jagged"(20-35%) to "merciless"(151-175%)] At lower to middle level, the damage modifiers will probably be the most useful around since they add significant damage to the damage done.  This is important as damage bonus due to character stats is usually low for most classes.  Even for rogues, the damage modifiers will come in useful.
	Resistance Modifiers    [varies depending on whether it is resist all or resist fire/lightning/magic] Almost strictly for middle to high level rogues only.  The resistance modifiers help to save a slot on resistance for the rogue who probably by then would be doing around 90-100 damage even with a normal bow.

Suffixes

	Stats Modifiers    [varies depending on the stats they improve] Dexterity modifiers, up to "perfection"(+21-30), are mainly for non-rogue, non-bard characters as they provide needed to-hit.  Rogues and bards already have decent to-hit with bows and will benefit more from a +all bow. Strength modifers, up to "giants"(+16-20), are mainly for characters needing strength to wear heavier armour. Magic modifiers, up to "sorcery"(+16-20), helps to improve mana and magical to-hit.  Good for 'mage-styled' characters. .Vitality modifiers. +all modifiers are the best all-round effect you can have especially for a rogue.
	Elemental Damage Effects   [varies depending on the element (fire or lightning)] these bows deal spectacularly high damage (perhaps due to a bug) as the lightning or fire part of the damage can be dealt to the enemies several times over. you will probably suffer against immunes as these bows would be reduced to nothing more than a suffix-less bow.
	Swiftness   [fast attack] In the newer versions of Diablo, the "swiftness" suffix makes you fire the arrows at a faster rate.  This adds up to significant damages at higher levels.   Useless in Hellfire though.

Unique Weapons

	Eaglehorn   [long battle bow, +20 dex, +50% to-hit, +100% dmg, indestructible] mainly for indestructibility, better bows are available.
	The Needler    [short bow, +50% to-hit, unusual dmg (1-3), fast attack] mainly for speed, but even a long war bow of swiftness serves better.
	Windforce    [long war bow, +5 str, +200% dmg, knockback] high damage but knockback can be irritating; now, even certain bows of swiftness deals more damage.
	Gnat Sting (Hellfire)    [multiple arrows, unusual dmg (1-2), quick arrows, indestructible] a dubious choice by me, the multiple arrows can give rise to triple damage on one enemy or one arrow into three enemies all with just one click.  indestructibility is a bonus.

Essentially, i would say that the unique bows all pale in comparison to the non-unique bows, except maybe the Gnat Sting.

Conclusion

As can be seen above, there are so many different kinds of weapons available.  The choice is what YOU have to make as it is your game, your character.  What one person suggests or recommends may or may not work for you.  Try it out yourself and you might just like it.  For more practical combat purposes, consult my melee weapon analysis.   The following lists the weapons i recommend  for each of the classes:

Sometimes, the dream weapon never comes by and you usually have to make do with whatever you can get.  A good prefix weapon usually don't come with a good suffix, so you will have to weigh the pros and the cons of each before making your decision.   The most important thing afterall is to have fun!

Ice(BNR)

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